


To Hell

by Joel7th



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Dark!Alucard, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Slight OOC, Spoilers for S3, dark!Hector, everyone dies but still a happy ending (sort of), post-S3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23089360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joel7th/pseuds/Joel7th
Summary: Post-season 3. Alucard and Hector continued Dracula’s plan.
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Hector, Alucard/Hector (Castlevania)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	To Hell

Hector hadn’t seen Alucard shed a tear since he, barely holding onto his life, arrived at the threshold of Castlevania with a couple night creatures in tow. Greeted by the harrowing sight of decomposing corpses impaled on stakes, Hector had shuddered in his conviction that the young man floating at the entrance was Dracula’s reincarnation. Although Alucard had proven himself to be his father’s son in his unfathomable capacity for ruthlessness as well as his vast, icy emptiness, he hadn’t made Hector another macabre prop for his front lawn, opting to let him stay instead. When he proposed a cleansing of the Earth — not a cull but a total, thorough and indiscriminating cleanse — in a flat tone, Hector simply agreed. It seemed the only right thing to do.

Now on his knees, he was crying, red-tinted tears falling freely on the heads cradled in his arm. In front of him laid the bodies of a woman and a man, their garments dyed in the blood from their mortal wounds to the point the original colors were unrecognizable. Hector didn’t know them personally, but he had heard enough stories to know once upon a time the three of them had been allies, friends even, long before Alucard’s turn into the very same atrocity that had united them in the first place. Hector supposed it was only right for Alucard to weep for their shared past, and for the future they could have had.

He too felt unbidden tears pooling around the rims of his eyes. He tried to blink them away but to no avail. A droplet rolled down his cheek and landed on a beautiful scarred face. He wiped away the teardrop with his thumb, feeling the skin losing warmth with every second passing. The change was imperceptible but Forgemasters like himself had always been intimate with death. There had been a time when Hector had been so afraid of dying that he would have done anything to ensure his survival. Shame burned hotly in his guts whenever he reflected on his betrayal of Lord Dracula while Isaac had remained loyal to the bitter end. His wrath for him had been righteous, and Hector would have welcomed Isaac’s dagger in his heart had it not been for his oath to Alucard. He had thought Isaac of all people would have understood their cause, even joined them, but it seemed his journey had softened him somehow. Had shown him there was goodness in this world, however small, however feeble. There had been a time when they were seen as equals in their forging prowess, until Hector had discovered nothing empowered his creatures better than his hellish desire for vengeance. Isaac had hated humanity in general but Hector’s grudge had been focused. Had burned his own soul to fuel it.

Gently he closed Isaac’s eyes and reached into the fold of his tunic for his old coins, wincing as the movement caused the gaping wound in his abdomen to seep. “Soon I’ll be joining you, my _philoi_ ,” Hector thought with a faint smile while carefully placing the coins over Isaac’s eyelids.

Hector lifted his head and called out, “To me, my sweet Lenore.”

Heavy footsteps caused tremor that Hector could feel with his body. From a darkened corner in the grand hall, a monster crawled out, its impressive reddish mane trailing on the ground. He smiled sweetly at it and reached out to pat its bulging forehead. “I know you’re in there and you can hear me,” he began. “I know you’ve been wondering why I was able to find a loophole in the way your ring works.” He lifted his blood-soaked hand, pressed against his wound till now, in front of the monster’s face, reveling in the way its glowing blue eyes staring dully at his ring. “It’s simple. As long as I harbor no thought of harming you, it won’t cause me pain. So I turned you into this form with my best intentions in mind. To protect you, to care for you...” He leaned in and blew a soft breath at its snout, his lips almost touching its scaly skin. “To love you the only way I could.”

‘Lenore’ looked at him with eyes coated in a sheen of moisture and whimpered.

“Run, sweet Lenore,” he commanded. “Run and never stop or your dear sisters will catch you. They’re starving.”

As soon as Lenore disappeared from his sight, he turned to the remaining of his decimated night horde. “Go,” he ordered, sharply. “You’re untethered now.”

Agony twisted his insides, causing him to hiss through bloodstained teeth. Hector laughed out loud despite the sudden stab of pain — had had ample practice to get used to it — while his eyes followed the creatures rushing through the imposing door. Soon after he perished, his creatures would follow, dragged back to Hell since there was nothing to anchor them to this Earth. It seemed only right. Something clawed at his throat and Hector coughed into his hand. Wetness seeped through the cracks between his fingers and painted little red flowers on the marble floor.

“It’s over.”

Hector heard Alucard’s voice and felt Alucard’s hand on his shoulder. He turned around to face him. The dhampir’s skin was dotted with blood, his own or his fallen friends’ Hector couldn’t tell. Hector’s eyes traveled from his chiseled cheekbone down his neck and shoulder and stopped at the stump where his right arm had been. He made no comment and pressed his hand — the one free of his blood — against Alucard’s cheek and touched his forehead with his own. “Yes, it’s over,” he whispered, eyes shut. “No more humans, no more vampires, the Earth once again belongs to the plants and animals as it should always have been.”

“Only the two of us left alive,” Alucard murmured. He sounded more worn-out than Hector had ever heard him, and Hector’s heart throbbed for him the same way it had when he learned the identities of the oldest corpses in the front lawn. His arms wrapped around Alucard’s frame in a bone-crushing embrace, wishing more than ever for them to merge into one and dissolve into oblivion.

“Not for long,” Hector replied and kissed his lips, tasting the bitter salt of Alucard’s blood tears with the tip of his tongue. He was sure Alucard could taste his tears as well, for they were falling again.

They broke the kiss and gazed into each other’s eyes to find in there the solidified determination that mirrored their own. Hector extended his hand to grab a wooden stake nearby; it must have come off a piece of furniture in the heat of battle. Weighing it in his hand, he smiled. Just perfect.

Alucard reciprocated Hector’s smile with his own. Though it was tainted with the cloying blood on his skin, it was still the most beautiful thing Hector had seen in his short life. “This is the first time I’ve seen your smile,” Hector said. “Quite stingy with it, aren’t you?”

“Like you’re the one to talk,” Alucard scoffed. “I can count the number of times you’ve smiled during your stay here with my right hand, which I no longer have.”

Hector laughed, and Alucard followed soon after. Their joined laughter resonated between the high walls.

“This world is better without us.”

“I can’t disagree.”

“Adrian,” Hector spoke his name and painted a look of surprise on Alucard’s face, which momentarily returned him to his true age. “Can you trust me to stake your heart?”

“Can you trust me to gorge out yours, Hector?”

“We only have each other, don’t we?” Hector asked, dipping the tip of his stake into Alucard’s stained shirt.

Alucard tugged the glove off his remaining hand with his teeth and tossed the leather aside. His nails elongated into their full lengths.

Seeing his claws, Hector couldn’t help a shudder as they conjured the memories of Carmilla’s and Lenore’s claws, especially the latter, digging into his flesh and leaving bloody gashes that had never healed properly.

Alucard pressed his palm against Hector’s sternum.

“See you at the gate of Hell,” Hector said, plunging the stake into Alucard’s heart with all the strength he had left. Almost instantly a chilling sharpness penetrated the center of his chest. He had but enough time for a small smile in knowing Alucard indeed kept his end of their oath.

...

Hector’s first conscious sensation was a warm puff of air kissing his face. He opened his eyes to the sight of Alucard’s body slumped against his own, his chin resting on Hector’s shoulder and his blond locks swaying lightly in the wind.

“Alucard?” Hector called. He felt the dhampir’s breath heating the exposed skin of his neck and released a sigh he didn’t know he had been holding in his lungs. The air around them was quite hot but bearable.

“Adrian?” he called again.

Alucard stirred and lifted his head from Hector’s shoulder to look at him with glazed eyes. “Hector?”

“I believe we are in Hell.”

Alucard sat up but his shoulders remained in contact with Hector’s. His eyes scanned the vast, barren land before them, taking in the red hue from the upside-down sun at the horizon. The sky was a brilliant vermillion, where there was not a single cloud.

“So this is Hell,” Alucard said.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Hector replied, exhilarated. “Just like the scenes in my dreams.”

“You’ve dreamed of Hell?”

“Since I abandoned the will to live. I guess us Forgemasters are Hellbound after all. They often say we reek of death and Hell.”

Alucard chuckled. “That means we’re bound to run into Isaac sooner or later.”

“I’m counting on that.”

“Well, I’m not. He’s trouble-incarnate.”

Hector snorted. “You need not be afraid. You have me.”

Alucard moved his hand in habit, and was shocked to find that he was having his right arm. He lifted his hand and studied his palm as though he couldn’t believe it was his flesh and bone.

“We’ve truly left our previous lives behind,” Hector said. His eyes were fixed on the ring finger of his left hand. There was no longer a band of black and red threads braided together.

“What do we do now?”

Hector shrugged. “I don’t know. We walk, I guess, and maybe we’ll run into our old friends, if we’re particularly lucky.”

Alucard stared at him with wide golden eyes. “Trevor and Sypha?” He shook his head. “No, they should not be here.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Hector said. “Sometimes people get sent to Hell with lesser sins.” He laid a hand on Alucard’s shoulder. “Even if we don’t encounter your friends or Isaac, at least we can find your parents.”

“My...... parents?”

“Yes. I’ve had glimpses of them in my dreams. They have always been together.”

“Can we find them?”

Hector stood up and held out his hand to Alucard. “Can you trust me to lead you to them?”

Alucard’s eyes traced the lines on Hector’s palm as if they were the map leading to his parents. Finally, he put his hand in the Forgemaster’s.

He might have lost his trust in both vampires and humans a long time ago, yet here, in this barren soil of Hell, he found a thriving bud of trust and hope.

“Always.”

_End_


End file.
